Travel Notes – Hang up the cell phone!
Yes, I know the airline rules allow cell phone use until the cabin door is closed.
I don’t care, hang up while you’re boarding.
You can’t pay attention to getting to the right seat while chatting to your stock broker. The cell phone makes you too stupid to get A-B-C-D-E-F in the right order. And when you’re “on an important call” and can’t be bothered to get to your assigned seat, you make the special meal assignments difficult for the cabin crew to manage for the entire 14 hour flight. If you’d been listening to the crew when you boarded the plane, maybe you’d have gone down the right aisle. But now, talking about that potential big deal right then was way too important to you. Never mind that its midnight.
You also can’t see that you’re blocking the aisle for the cabin attendant behind you that is trying to get forward and help the mother with two kids put their bags in the overhead. And you can’t hear the attendant saying “excuse me” because the inane “well, I’m on the airplane now” is filling your empty head with noise.
And you don’t notice that there are people trying to get past you into their seats, and the entire boarding process is waiting for you to get out of the way so they can be seated. It is your fault we are late leaving the gate.
Cell phones are tremendously useful devices. But use a little consideration before endlessly blathering on it. Think about where you are, who’s around you, and what you should be paying attention to instead.